Howard Ball - A Defiant Life: Thurgood Marshall and the Persistence of Racism in America

Other books by Howard Ball

Changing Perspectives in Contemporary Political Analysis

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The Vision and the Dream of Justice Hugo L. Black

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Direct Overturn by the U.S. Supreme Court

Constitutional Powers

Courts and Politics: The Federal Judicial System

Compromised Compliance: Implementation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act

Controlling Regulatory Sprawl

Federal Administrative Agencies

Justice Downwind: Americas Atomic Testing Program in the 1950s

Of Power and Right: Justices Black and Douglas and Americas Constitutional Revolution

We Have a Duty: Watergate in the U.S. Supreme Court

Cancer Factories: The Tragedy of Americas Uranium Miners

The U.S. Supreme Court: From the Inside Out

Hugo Black: Cold Steel Warrior

Multicultural Education in Colleges and Universities

F RONTISPIECE : Thurgood Marshall waiting to argue a case in Supreme Court, ca. 1961. (Library of Congress)

Copyright 1998 by Howard Ball

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ball, Howard, 1937

A defiant life : Thurgood Marshall and the persistence of racism in America / Howard Ball.
p. cm.
1. Marshall, Thurgood, 19081993. 2. United States. Supreme CourtBiography. 3. JudgesUnited StatesBiography. 4. Afro-AmericansCivil rightsHistory. I. Title.
KF8745.M34B35 1999
347.732634
[B]DC21 98-23031

eISBN: 978-0-307-77798-0

v3.1

For Thurgood Marshall:

I can remember my mother talking
about the Moses. It wasnt until I became
older that I realized the invisible angel
Marshall was.

S HELLY H ARVARD , A FRICAN A MERICAN H OUSEWIFE

A great many people helped me in the researching and writing of this book. The librarians and staff of the following libraries and archival collections were generous with their advice and assistance: the Library of Congress Manuscript Division; the Harry S Truman Presidential Library; the Dwight David Eisenhower Presidential Library; the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library; and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library. University library staffs also helped me in my discovery of Thurgood Marshalls life and professional career. These include the Moorland-Spingarn Archives at Howard University; the University of Kentucky archives; the Columbia University Oral History archives; and the University of Texas Law School library archives.

In support of my research on Thurgood Marshall and his times, the following organizations supported my research, and I am very grateful for their help: the University of Vermont (the Department of Political Science and its M.P.A. program, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School, and the Provosts Office); the Jacobson Fund at UVM; the John F. Kennedy Foundation (for selecting me as the 199697 Theodore Sorensen Fellow); the Harry S Truman Foundation; and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Foundation.

Once again I must thank two close friendsPhillip Cooper, the Gund Chair of Liberal Arts at the University of Vermont, and Thomas P. Lauth, Professor and Chair of Political Science at the University of Georgiafor their invaluable assistance, counsel, and friendship over the years. Three others must also be acknowledged for their help and advice to me as I worked on this book: Laryn Ivy was a student of mine at the University of Vermont who did some extraordinary work for me, including some very fine interviews with former Thurgood Marshall law clerks, while she was attending the Washington, D.C., Semester program at American University. She is a brilliant law student at the University of Virginia, and will be an outstanding legal advocate upon graduation. John Burke, a colleague of mine here at the University of Vermont, was another person who helped me a great deal, finding books for me to look at and helping me with my planning for the work at the presidential libraries. My friend and editor, Jim OShea Wade, has been enormously helpful in the final preparation of the manuscript.